6 must-have features for your expense reporting app

You’ve decided your business is ready to roll out an app to help manage employee spend and track expenses, but you’re not sure where to start. After all, how do you decide between a basic expense app and a 2026-ready expense platform?

We’ve got you covered! In this post, we’ve highlighted a list of essential features that you should look for when comparing your options on the best expense management app on the market. 

1. Accurate, AI-Powered Receipt Scanning

Manual data entry is a thing of the past. A top-tier expense reporting app should include AI-driven receipt scanning that captures details instantly and reliably.

Look for:

• Multi-language and multi-currency support for global teams

• Anomaly detection to flag blurry or duplicate receipts

• Smart categorization with confidence scores, so finance teams can trust the data they receive

The ability to scan receipts with your phone’s camera helps save tons of time and minimizes the need to keep track of paper receipts when you or your employees are on-the-go for business travel.

Expensify pioneered the receipt scanning app space with its OCR technology, SmartScan. With a 98.6% accuracy rate, you’ll be able to rest easy knowing that the data scanned into the app is exactly what’s on your receipt. It can even detect currencies from around the world, so no matter where you are, your expense reports will always be accurate!

2. Transparent, flexible pricing models

Pricing shouldn’t be a mystery. Whether you’re scaling from 10 to 1,000 employees or rolling out new functionality, the best platforms offer:

• Usage-based or flexible pricing tiers

• Volume discounts that adapt as your company grows

• Transparent billing dashboards so admins can forecast costs easily

This flexibility is especially important if you’re experimenting with AI-powered features that might scale usage over time. For example, Expensify offers members a discount on their pricing if they use the Expensify Card for their corporate card solution, as well as up to 2% cash back!

3. Intuitive UX and onboarding across devices

If an app isn’t easy to use, people won’t use it, no matter how many features it has. Look for a clean, intuitive interface that works seamlessly across mobile and web.

Key things to check:

• Progressive onboarding and in-app guidance for new users

• Realtime syncing between devices

• Personalized dashboards for different roles

Good UX isn’t just about aesthetics. It directly affects adoption rates and the quality of data finance teams receive. A good indicator of a user-friendly app is a solution that allows employees to submit expense reports quickly and easily for approval, without lots of red tape to close the books each month. 

4. Custom workflows with built-in intelligence

Make sure your app has the ability to customize approval workflows. Expense reporting isn’t one-size-fits-all. Modern platforms let you tailor workflows to your policies and increasingly, use AI to enforce them.

Top apps offer:

• Conditional rules (e.g. auto-approve low-value expenses)

• Customisable approval chains by team, geography, or budget

• Real-time alerts when something looks off

This combination of flexibility and intelligence reduces bottlenecks and keeps finance workflows running smoothly. You’ll also want to ensure your app has easy-to-use integrations.

5. Seamless integrations with cards, banks, and tools

Expense management doesn’t happen in isolation. Your app should plug into your existing ecosystem without friction.

Look for:

• Realtime bank feeds and open banking APIs

• Native integrations with your corporate card program

• Integration capabilities with ERP, CRM, or accounting tools such as Quickbooks, NetSuite, Uber, Xero, and more

To make the entire process from receipt scanning to reconciliation seamless, look for a solution that has a direct integration to your preferred accounting system. This way, each expense submitted by your employees can be coded and categorized to match what’s in your accounting system with no extra work. 

👀 Explore all the Expensify integrations that align best with your business needs.

6. Automation and risk intelligence

In 2026, it’s not enough to automate data capture. You also need to automate oversight.

Leading apps now include:

• AI-based fraud and anomaly detection to flag unusual claims early

• Duplicate detection across departments and time periods

• Predictive matching between receipts and transactions

• Automated escalation rules for high-risk claims

By building risk intelligence into your workflows, you minimize manual review time while tightening compliance.

Use an app that has a connected corporate card or reliable bank feeds. Your expense management solution should offer a good selection of banking and credit card connections or a connected corporate card, so tracking receipts and payments are as simple as possible. The best apps offer:

• Realtime transaction feeds

• Automatic receipt matching at the moment of swipe

• Policy enforcement tied directly to card usage

This ensures finance teams can close books faster with fewer headaches — no more chasing receipts at month-end.

Bonus points if the app offers a corporate card that directly links purchases on the card to an expense report for easy employee expense approvals. The Expensify Visa Commercial Card is a great example of this, where employees simply swipe their card and an expense is automatically created for them; no manual entry required! 

The business impact: More than just features

The right expense reporting app isn’t just a tool, but an engine for better compliance, productivity, and cost control.

Teams using platforms with these features typically see:

• Massive reduction in manual review time

• Faster reimbursement cycles

• Clearer audit trails and less risk exposure

• Higher employee satisfaction due to reduced friction

Common questions about expense reporting apps

• Can I get a demo of a tool that manages both travel bookings and expense reports for a small business?

  Absolutely. Expensify’s Travel + Expense functionality lets small businesses book travel, capture receipts, and manage expense reports in one place.

  You can request a demo to see how it streamlines the entire workflow - from flights and hotels to approvals and reimbursements. It’s designed to help smaller teams operate with the same efficiency as large travel programs.

• How can I find a tool that simplifies both expense reporting and invoicing for creative professionals like graphic designers?

  Look for a platform that combines expense tracking and invoicing in one workflow. Expensify, for example, lets you log project-related expenses, attach receipts, and create branded invoices - all from the same dashboard. This means less time jumping between tools and more time focusing on your creative work. Bonus points if the tool integrates with your accounting software to keep everything in sync.

• How do you automate employee expense reports?

  Start by choosing an app with AI-powered receipt scanning, policy-based approvals, and automatic categorization. Once your team starts submitting expenses, the system can match transactions to receipts, flag anomalies, and route approvals without manual input.

  With Expensify, you can set rules to auto-approve low-value expenses, detect duplicates, and trigger reimbursements instantly, turning a time-consuming admin task into a background process.

• Is there an invoicing solution that allows integration with my existing credit card for seamless expense reporting and reconciliation?

  Yes. The best solutions offer realtime credit card integrations, so expenses are automatically imported and reconciled without extra steps.

  Expensify’s corporate card and open banking integrations mean your transactions flow in instantly, receipts get matched automatically, and your invoice records stay clean. This eliminates manual data entry and keeps your books accurate.

• How can AI improve expense reporting accuracy?

  AI can detect anomalies, flag duplicates, and categorise expenses with high confidence, thus reducing errors and saving finance teams time.

• Are these features relevant for small teams too?

  Yes. Even small teams benefit from automation and risk detection because it prevents scaling headaches later.

The expense reporting app that fits the bill

Ready to get started with the best expense reporting app on the market? If all of these criteria resonate with you, then Expensify will fit the bill as your expense reporting app of choice. Just click on the button below to get started with your free trial and say goodbye to manual expense reporting forever.